Gully Boy: Celebrating Subaltern Masculinities

The story of the underdog making good is a reasonably familiar trope for Bollywood. Amitabh Bachchan had made the genre his own when he ruled as the ‘angry young man.’ Usually such stories also include an element of moral redemption and exploit the familiar theme of cops and robbers all the way from the sibling rivalry where Sashi Kapoor famously says ‘mere pass Ma hain’ to the more contemporary saga of the ‘Sacred Games’. The story of Gully Boy while including many elements of the familiar also provides an alternative exploration of subaltern masculinities.

Dharavi provides a very realistic and human backdrop but unlike in Slumdog Millionaire it reverberates with a joie de vivre. Instead of evoking the pathos of the well-heeled viewer it indicts the wide-eyed incredulous ‘gaze’ of poverty tourism when the grandmother makes a quick 500 rupees by letting the guide bring in the white camera toting foreign tourists into her home. Guiltily I recalled my own experience entering the hovels of a Masai camp near Ngorongoro, clicking away in wonder.

Ranveer Singh (Murad) in the title role is a Dharavi youth who knows that he has to secure a college degree to get ahead in life. His close friend Moeen is in the more familiar ‘tapori’ mould. He sells drugs and steals cars, sometimes just for a lark and a joy ride. The third character is MC Sher, a ‘rapper’ who both inspires and mentors Murad in ‘rapping’. Unlike the other two he is not Muslim and instead of Dharavi lives in a one room chawl where he keeps his many sneakers secure in a safe. These three young men are all from the more marginal sections of Mumbai society but they are different and their differences don’t seem at all contrived

There is a very interesting ‘bro-code’ in their relationships throughout the two and half hours of the film. Sher is already an icon among college students when Murad asks him to use his lyrics in his rap. Sher refuses to use the more ‘powerful’ poetry of Murad and instead encourages him to ‘rap’ and takes him under his tutelage. This support is unwavering even when mentor is knocked out of the ‘rap’ competition and the mentorship continues till the end. With Moeen the relationship is a little more complex. Murad is shown as a reluctant participant in the joy ride in a stolen car in the opening sequence of the film. He also rebukes Moeen for using children to peddle ganja (cannabis). Moeen will have none of this moral lecture and one senses that their relationship is perhaps doomed to end on moral grounds, but it does not. When Murad walks out of his father’s home along with brother and mother, Moeen’s garage is his first port of call. Moeen is the only one he knows who can make money by bending the rules. Murad becomes a willing associate to a string of car liftings and using this money sets up his new home. When Moeen is picked up by the police Murad is willing to share the rap with him but Moeen refuses. He says that Murad has a better chance to make ‘good’ and should stay out.

Gully Boy is a film about young men and rap music. Rap competitions in the form of a face off between rappers is a running theme in the film. The key to winning is to run down your opponent. Murad is hesitant in the beginning and is not at all comfortable in belittling his opponent. He avoids this attacking style which is more popular with other rappers. Instead he uses a more reflective style where social observations around poverty and inequality form the core of his poetry. He too is an angry young man but the film completely avoids physical violence as a means of getting back at society.

While the film is primarily about men there are a couple of strong female characters as well. Alia Bhatt plays the role of Safeena, Murad’s love interest. She is from a conservative middle-class Muslim family and is training to be a doctor. Dressed demurely in a hijab she is explosively independent and thinks nothing of hitting another woman with a beer bottle, when she thinks she is ‘poaching’ her man. Kalki Koechlin is ‘Sky’, the other young woman who is very unconventional. She is from the high society of Mumbai, and studies in the US. She is keen to produce a track with the rappers. She also a rebel and provides a counterpoint to the existing socio-economic order when she sprays graffiti and defaces posters of anorexic models and fairness creams. Murad’s relationships with these two young women are important but somehow seem less significant than that with Moeen and MC Sher.

The film offers a fresh perspective to subaltern masculinities which are currently much maligned. The Nirbhaya case from Delhi and the Shakti Mills case of Mumbai have highlighted the intense sexual violence associated with young men from the margins. The current political climate of intolerance is being fuelled through the same demographic who are being encouraged see their enemy in the ‘other’. Across the world rapid social and economic changes along with dispossession and economic inequality have created some of the most virulent expressions of male violence and hatred. Male youth see their many masculine entitlements challenged and threatened. The political and economic powers have been able to focus the attention away from more fundamental questions of equity and justice and towards convenient ‘enemies’ like ethnic and religious minorities and women. Within this context Zoya Akhtar has done a remarkable job in presenting the story of young men from the underbelly of Mumbai in a very human manner without using any hyperbole, violence or sex. The men are clearly dispossessed but they are observant and analytic as well. They bend the rules for fun and for survival but they are not evil or malicious. Within an ambience of competition the film provides a strong message of empathy and solidarity. Gully Boy is a contemporary film celebrating eternal human values, a film worth watching even if you are not into rap.